The 15-Minute Peace Treaty: Surviving Baby Activity Centers
At exactly 4:12 PM on a rainy Tuesday, I realized I had made a terrible, terrible mistake. I was sitting on our battered London flat's living room rug, nursing a desperately lukewarm cup of tea, while my twin daughters, Maya...
Analog QA Testing: Why I Replaced The Flashing Toys With Wood
It was exactly 3:14 AM when my bare heel made contact with the plastic singing cow. I was holding a half-asleep eleven-month-old, navigating the dark hallway by memory, when 180 decibels of synthesized banjo music erupted from the floorboards. The...
The great baby toys invasion: A survival guide for tired parents
It's 4:13 in the morning, and I've just stepped barefoot onto a hard plastic sheep that immediately responded by bleating the alphabet into the dark, silent hallway. I froze, my foot hovering above the floorboards, waiting for the inevitable twin...
The Baby Steps Game Disaster and How to Actually Teach Walking
It was somewhere around 3:17 in the morning, a time that I'm increasingly convinced exists solely to punish parents for their past life choices. Maya, the slightly more reasonable of my two-year-old twin daughters, was fast asleep in her cot,...
The Plastic Avalanche: A Real Parent's Guide to Better Play
The singing plastic dog went off at exactly 3:14 AM. I know the exact time because the microwave clock was glaring at me in the dark kitchen where I was standing in a milk-stained gray nursing tank, furiously shaking a...
A Rat in the Playroom and Why I Tossed All Our Plastic Toys
I was holding a lukewarm mug of chai, stepping over the scattered debris of my toddler's morning play session. Beside the television stand, there was a grey lump. At first, I thought it was just a discarded lint ball from...
Why I Finally Caved and Bought a Baby DJ Table for the Twins
It's 5:42 AM. Rain is hammering against the single-glazed window of our London flat, and Maya has just discovered the 'drop' button. Chloe, entirely unfazed by the sudden burst of electronic reggaeton, is rhythmically gumming the edge of the plastic...
Why I Finally Caved and Bought a Play Area for My Kids
It was a Tuesday morning in late 2017, and I was wearing a pair of black yoga pants that had a highly questionable smear of sweet potato puree on the left thigh. Maya was seven months old, which meant she...
A Letter To Past Tom About Hanging Baby Mobiles
Dear Tom of six months ago. You're currently standing in your socks on a wobbly Ikea step stool at 2:13 AM. You have a plastic, battery-guzzling, brightly coloured spaceship contraption in one hand and a tiny screwdriver clamped between your...